Gilberto – Tottenham’s calamitous first Brazilian

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Nick Harris, writer for Squawka and To the Lane and Back, remembers Gilberto…

Years before the hapless figure of Andre Santos graced these shores, Tottenham Hotspur can claim to have cornered the market on inept Brazilian left backs with Gilberto, a player whose brief stay at White Hart Lane was so bereft of merit it led to a re-evaluation of plenty of Spurs “Worst Ever” XIs when he departed in 2009.

Spurs signed Gilberto in the January transfer window of 2008, on the back of four relatively successful years at Hertha Berlin. They paid over £2 million for his services, which is not a lot of money in modern football, but a truly incredible amount considering what followed. Continue reading